Brad Smith
So “testing the waters,” which doesn’t appear in federal law, is a creation of the FEC to assist potential candidates. It was not intended to subject every person who thinks about running for office to hundreds of pages of FEC rules dictating how a political campaign is run.
CLC wants the FEC to undertake a “fact-based” investigation to determine the moment that Jeb Bush and others became “actual” candidates, or began “testing the waters.” If that approach were the law, there would be no clear rules defining when one crosses the line from thinking about running to actually running, and Governor Bush and other candidates could be subject to criminal penalties for speaking about issues of importance to them, or for helping like-minded candidates raise money.
